Comparing the vacuum structure of quenched and dynamical configurations

TL;DR

This paper compares filtering methods for topological structures in SU(3) lattice configurations, revealing that dynamical quarks lead to more fragmented topological charge densities.

Contribution

It introduces a combined analysis approach using multiple filtering methods to better understand topological structures in lattice QCD configurations.

Findings

Strong correlation between APE and Stout smearing results

Topological charge density is more fragmented with dynamical quarks

Filtering artifacts can be reduced by combining methods

Abstract

We systematically compare filtering methods used to extract topological structures on SU(3) lattice configurations. We show that there is a strong correlation of the topological charge densities obtained by APE and Stout smearing. To get rid of artifacts of these methods, we analyze structures that are also seen by Laplace filtering. This combined analysis shows that the topological charge density is more fragmented in the presence of dynamical quarks.